Obama Foreign Policy

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey put some daylight between himself and the Commander in Chief on the question of our options with Iran. President Obama, of course, serves up the choice as between the Iran deal (ineffective) or war (not gonna do it). General Dempsey, however, asserts that the United States has “a range of options” if it »

The field of Republican presidential candidates is extraordinarily impressive. Even so, Carly Fiorina stands out. She’s the only woman and she has articulated her critique of the Democratic opposition with a special zest and bite. In his recent dispatch from New Hampshire, Jay Nordlinger dubs her “Carly the communicator.” I am unsure what the premise of her candidacy for president is, but it seems to me at the least that »

The Iran deal finances and otherwise facilitates Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. It even sets up the United States and the other parties as protectors of Iran’s nuclear program. Why would President Obama want to do that? He seems to believe that Iran should play the role of “a very successful regional power.” If he believes that this is in the national interest of thee United States, he is a »

John Kerry testified today before the House Foreign Relations Committee about the Iran deal. I watched only a small portion of it. The debate, though very important, is becoming stale. For me, the most interesting moment occurred when Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked Kerry whether, if Congress disapproves of the agreement and overrides President Obama’s veto of its disapproval, the administration would follow the law regarding what »

Below is the video of the Hudson Institute event held over the noon hour today in Washington, D.C. on the pending nuclear deal with Iran. Senator Tom Cotton keynoted the event. Senator Cotton’s address was followed by a stellar panel discussion including Michael Doran, William Tobey, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith. The embed code was graciously sent at my request by the Hudson Institute. I can only say that I »

Mike Huckabee is under attack for a comment he made about the Iran nuclear deal. Huckabee stated: This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. The comment is over-the-top for several reasons. First, it is too harsh. It’s Iran that »

Today at 12:15 p.m.(Eastern), Senator Tom Cotton will keynote the Hudson Institute event in Washington, D.C. on the pending nuclear deal with Iran. Senator Cotton’s keynote address will be followed by discussion featuring a stellar panel including Michael Doran, William Tobey, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith. The event will be livestreamed via the video below once the program gets started. Until that time the video will feature Hudson’s most recent »

Omri Ceren writes to comment on Jay Solomon’s Wall Street Journal article “White House says Iran unlikely to address suspicions of secret weapons program” (accessible here via Google. Omri writes: The WSJ gained access to some of the documents on the Iran deal that the administration filed with Congress to meet its obligations under the Corker legislation. Two of the documents – both of which are secret and one of »

If the long-term consequences of the administration’s Iran deal are murky, the short-term results are crystal clear: on Implementation Day, estimated to occur in a matter of months, sanctions against Iran will be lifted and Iranian assets that have been frozen abroad will begin to flow back to Tehran. This is, of course, why the mullahs made the deal. Sanctions imposed by the U.S., the E.U. and the U.N. have »

I wish there were any danger that Congress would reject the deal with Iran by the two-thirds majorities necessary to override President Obama’s veto under the Corker bill. Has the United States ever entered into such a fateful deal without popular support? I think the answer is no, and the lack of popular support may be the single most distinguishing feature of the Iran deal from the Munich Agreement. In »

I’m posting a video of Tom Cotton commenting on the side deals to the Iran agreement and a video of Senator Melendez at work in yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deal following the footnotes in Omri Ceren’s email update: Happy Friday from Washington DC, where lawmakers will be wrapping up a half-week of hearings on the final JCPOA deal with Iran. As always there are three levels »

Earlier today, Ted Cruz spoke to a rally protesting the administration’s Iran deal. Representatives of Code Pink and other radical groups, representing the establishment, crashed the rally and tried to shout him down. Cruz responded by inviting the leftists to the podium, where he engaged them in a civil debate. Medea Benjamin represented Code Pink, and another leftist or two was also heard from. Did Cruz crush them? He did. »

Fred Fleitz reports at NR: Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Congressmen Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) issued a press release today on a startling discovery they made during a July 17 meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna: There are two secret side deals to the nuclear agreement with Iran that will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the U.S. public. One of these »

The worst feature of President Obama’s disastrous deal with Iran is that it provides immediate sanctions relief that will cause $100 billion to $150 to flow into the regime’s coffers, and will lead to substantial improvement in Iran’s economy, which has been badly hurt by the sanctions that the U.N., the U.S. and others have imposed. This means that opposition to the ayatollahs’ rule will be weakened, and Iran will »

Towards the end of the nuclear negotiations with Iran, the mullahs’ negotiators talked about the possibility of cooperating strategically with the U.S. on regional matters, in the event the sides reached a deal. Even “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei joined in, declaring that “if the other side avoids its ambiguity in the talks, it’ll be an experience showing it’s possible to negotiate with them on other issues.” This was an enticing »

Omri Ceren writes to draw attention to Bill Gertz’s Free Beacon article on the ludicrous inspections regime established under the deal with Iran. Omni writes: Last April – in the immediate days after the Lausanne framework was announced – Obama administration officials assured reporters that it was a good deal because the verification regime would include anytime/anywhere inspections [a][b][c]. Then there was a range of hearings and forums held in »

The deal that the United States and others have entered into with Iran bears comparison with the Munich Agreement. Churchill’s speech condemning the Munich Agreement is useful in understanding the Iran deal. Churchill condemned the Munich Agreement in part as “a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road[.]” I think the Iran deal can usefully be understood as representing a defeat »